Friday, August 1, 2014

Naxx at the Half: A Nekkid Emperor

The only way to have fun in Hearthstone is to violate deck
building rules or the Card
Balance Philosophy document. Those
of us capable of critical, rational thought have known this for some time. Some of us have even tried to go to the Hearthstone forums with good arguments to make Hearthstone better, only to be crushed under
an avalanche of intellectually dishonest, abusive sycophants. Indeed, because Hearthstone is at least 4 to
12 months away from being finished, I’ve written the entire game off. I can’t play games with my friends in a
casual environment and enjoy any progression whatsoever, and 1 v. 1, netdeck v.
netdeck, brainless, coin flip fake sports are the least compelling activity in
all of gaming, bar none. So, I
approached the release of the first wing of Naxx with dueling expectations: We
grade on a curve, and Blizzard has fleeced gamers who hate themselves for 12
billion dollars in WoW subs alone since WoW stopped being a game in favor of
being a self-esteem engine in 2008, but Blizzard has no idea how to design,
develop, balance, or administrate a CCG.
Naxx, therefore, was a total crapshoot in my mind. I’d avoided the Naxx hype almost en total,
since why waste cycles on a farce that isn’t funny. However, since the first taste was free, and
I’d had enough gold on my account to buy the second wing, I figured I’d give
Naxx a go and see if there’s any glimmer of potential to be found anywhere. The results in a word: nope.

Ironically enough, before we start, I have to give a nod at
how lucky I was to even be able to purchase the second wing of Naxx for gold in
the first place. The fact that there are
still people reporting in the General forums that they are unable to make any
purchases of any kind is an indictment of how little the Blizzard enterprise
cares about its customer base. It is SOP
for Blizzard to put their games out months before they are finished, so some
amount of snafu is to be expected. After
all, pre-alpha software is rarely bug free.

To start, we have to discuss the cardinal sin of virtual
CCGs that is perpetrated every year by Magic: The Gathering Duels of the
Planeswalkers on its players: Cards are available in some decks, but not
others. What do I mean by this? Well in DoP 2013, the Exalted Darkness deck
has a Demonic Tutor as an unlockable; however, every other deck that runs black
does not use Tutor. Demonic Tutor has been a 5-star card since it has
existed. I’d go so far as to say that,
if Demonic Tutor was available in the card set you were using to play, you
would always include it

in a deck that runs black. The sin, of course, is to put super powerful
cards in the playable set, and then not make them available in every deck that
could run the card.

At this point, we can return to Naxxramas, because there are
some cool cards that are used, but you as a player don’t get to use them. At least we know where the mind, body, heart,
and soul of the design team was while it wasn’t fixing Hearthstone’s base set
or completing Hearthstone’s feature set over the last four months since
Hearthstone’s “release” (When looked at as a CCG, Hearthstone is still in Alpha
phase, regardless of what the marketing people at Blizzard or Blizzard fanbois think). They were making a bunch of cool things todangle in front of players that players can’t use.

The hero abilities in the encounters are generally more
powerful versions of class hero abilities, or hero abilities that are straight up
more useful than the pedestrian fare we were given for hero abilities on
Hearthstone’s release. Anub’Rekhan gets to summon 3/1 minions for 2 mana, while
the paladin can only summon 1/1 minions for 2 mana. Fearlina does 1 damage to a random target per
card in the player’s hand for 2 mana, while the mage can only deal 1 damage to
a target for 2 mana. Maexxna can bounce
a random minion of an opponent for 3 mana; none of the classes can do anything
remotely as powerful. Noth the
Plaguebringer summons a 1/1 skeleton for free every time a minion a player
controls dies. Heigan the Unclean deals
2 damage to the left-most minion for 1 mana.
Loatheb gets the hunter hero power on crack: 3 damage to the player for
2 mana. There’s tons of variety here in
terms of abilities and how they

can be used, but what difference does that make
when none of the abilities can be used by the players? Putting these kinds of abilities in the hands
of players would have added layers of depth to Hearthstone, but depth is verboten
in Hearthstone, so the players will never see anything remotely like the
abilities that were shown in this throw away content. These hero abilities are a sobering reminder
that Hearthstone was designed to be a spectacle of fake sport first, a video
game second, and a well-designed, compelling CCG a distant, distant third.

Not surprisingly, once you’re in the adventure itself, all
the superficial stuff works. Kel’thuzad
is there to supplement the Drarven P.T. Barnum that greets you when you launch
Hearthstone, acting as a “guide” through each wing’s encounters. KT is hardly necessary, since it is
impossible to get lost in each wing.
There are only 3 encounters and 2 class specific encounters in the basic
campaign; these encounters unlock cards for the player to use in deck
building. The heroic encounters are a
farce. The heroic encounters are harder
versions of the base campaign encounters; however, they aren’t harder because
the AI plays better or has constructed a better deck. The heroic encounters are an exercise in the
player exploiting massively OP enemy hero abilities. I suppose, therefore, it is apropos that the
reward for completing heroic mode is meaningless vanity stuff. So, if I understand correctly, I’m supposed
to take 1 of my 9 deck slots and build a deck specifically to beat 1 encounter,
then tear that deck apart (because it would be worthless in all modes where I
can obtain progression) to build another deck specifically to beat another
encounter? Oh, I forgot, I’m supposed to be trying to make Top 16 of
Legend Rank, so I can run a gauntlet of popular Twitch streamers in a
Hearthstone World Championships feeder tournament, so the only deck slots I
need are Miracle Rogue, Zoo, Ramp Druid, and Control Warrior. I’m certainly not supposed to be building
decks to have fun with my friends [NOTE: Friends is plural, meaning more than 1.] while
engaging in banter over Ventrilo and knocking back a beverage—if that were
true, 2-headed giant, emperor, grand melee, and attack left defend right would
have made it in to Hearthstone’s Alpha build in March, amirite?

While we’re on the subject of positives, we can also talk
about the class specific encounters. The
class encounters require the player to play a pre-canned boss with a pre-canned
deck that’s allowed to violate deck building rules. Of these, the Hunter deck is the most blatant
violation of the deck building guidelines so far; I summoned at least 10 Webspinners during
the encounter. It has to be said I had a
lot of fun summoning all those spiders resulting in 2 King Crushes on the field
at the same time. The feeling
is fleeting, though, because the Hunter encounter is something that can never happen in
Hearthstone outside of Naxxramas. Again,
I’m reminded that Hearthstone is only fun when you violate deck building
guidelines or the Card Balance Philosophy document.

Finally, some words on value. The only real reason to get Naxx is the 30 cards
that are unlocked by finishing the normal mode wings and the class challenges
week to week. Back when I was playing
Magic heavily, I would buy 1 display box of boosters per expansion pack. That translates into ~100 dollars retail,
which is what I spent on Hearthstone packs after Hearthstone went Alpha in
March. Magic expansion sets usually had
about 300 cards in them, which is equivalent to the Hearthstone base set. Naxx adds 30 cards to the mix, so to me, Naxx
is worth 10% of an expansion set purchase, or around 10 bucks. The content required to unlock the cards is
probably worth a little something, so maybe bump that 10 up to 12.50. Naxx is not worth a penny more than 12.50.

So what is Naxx? Certainly, an hour per wing’s worth of
diversion. It hasn’t to date changed the
metagame a lick, despite Ben Brode
running his mouth for an hour that it would; apparently, we all have to pay
for Military Wing before any appreciable change to the metagame is going to
happen. The legendary that’s available
to everyone, Maexxna, is garbage, like ETC and Gelbin before her. Weenie rush decks are getting help when they
least needed it. The base set is still
massively legendary heavy at the top end of the mana range and too utility rare
based at the bottom end of the mana range.
Leeroy Jenkins combos are still in violation of the Card Balance
Philosophy document; thus, they are still broken. Naxx through 2 wings hasn’t really changed
anything, besides adding 30 cards for players to overspend on.

What I think is saddest of all: The previous
scathing 1500 words would be largely irrelevant if Hearthstone’s feature set
were complete. If I could come home from
work on a Tuesday and throw down 4 games of ALDR with 4 people on the VtW Vent
and score a daily for the trouble, then it wouldn’t matter that Hearthstone’s
base set was designed over a weekend with crayons and construction paper. It wouldn’t matter that the business model is
to make people chase a small set of legendary cards by overspending on card
packs. It wouldn’t matter that the Card
Balance Philosophy document was written to retcon justification for arbitrary card
nerfs and immediately forgotten when it would justify at least 1 card
change. It wouldn’t matter that the overall
design was focused on <1% of Hearthstone games played (tournaments and
Legend Rank), while the rest of us are forced to claw at each other for the
scraps. The terrible metagame wouldn’t matter;
the worse community wouldn’t matter; the abusive MVPs wouldn’t matter. I’d be playing a CCG with my friends [NOTE: Friends is plural, meaning more than 1.] and having a good time. Apparently, having a good time is forbidden in
Hearthstone, with or without Naxxramas.

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